50+ Inspiring Quotes on Design

Most designers well know that it takes a lot of time and energy to be creative. While there are always good ideas out there, the best ideas are the ideas that are allowed to develop. Hence in part why designers find the amount of “work” it takes to be humorous and sometimes depressing. Here is a collection of quotes from some of the most well-known creative people from various creative industries and what conclusions they came to learn about design… hopefully you find some inspiring.

“The opposite of play is not work — it’s depression.” — Stuart Brown

“Leisure is the time for doing something useful.”— Benjamin Franklin

“Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.” — Louis I. Kahn

“I never design a building before I’ve seen the site and met the people who will be using it.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

“Good design is good business.” — Thomas J. Watson Jr.

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint Exupéry

“If design isn’t profitable, then it’s art.” — Henrik Fiskar

“Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking.” — Milton Glaser

“It’s art if can’t be explained. It’s fashion if no one asks for an explanation. It’s design if it doesn’t need explanation.” — Wouter Stokkel

“All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.” — Philip Johnson

“Color does not add a pleasant quality to design – it reinforces it.” — Pierre Bonnard

“Design is a formal response to a strategic question.” — Mariona Lopez

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” — Albert Einstein

“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.” — Walt Disney

“Great stories happen to people who can tell them.” — Ira Glass

“Whenever I have an idea I write it down, even if it’s not a very good idea. Sometimes the bad ideas will lead to better ones.” — Steven Snell

“Form follows function — that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss

“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution isn’t beautiful, I know it is wrong.” — Richard Buckminster Fuller